The Extended Body of Life We Depend on for Life

Although we tend to categorize biology in neat little abstract capsules like the names we might give a species, individual organisms, species and so on, do not respect these word based boundaries we give them. When we consider the community of relationships on which any part of a given biological system depends, we see the relationship membrane that defines what an organism needs to remain coherent over time extends beyond any local protein, organelle, or organ with a given species. Indeed the dependency extends beyond the membrane of any single organism or DNA profile to exist in the context of a larger body of life.

This larger body echoes the same relational dependencies that exist between cells and organs in a local biological economy such as a species, where mutual nourishment and protection of the coherency of the system is tended to by various means. In other words, a local biological economy depends on an extended family of relationships in order to continue over time, and this extended relational boundary, which operates by this same community principle, is a more accurate means of defining the membrane of a body of life than is any singular species within a local biological economy.

Like the roots of a tree extending inward to the soil, the networked lines of relational dependency a given organism requires to remain coherent over time extend both inward to include the mutually nourishing structures within the local membrane or skin of an individual organism, and outward to include a dependency on the larger economy of relationships that exists beyond the skin. Like an individual cell or organ, etc. the relationships that define an extended biological body also support the unified purpose of nourishing and protecting the continuation of the dynamic adaptive system as a whole. While there is some flexibility and redundancy, especially in larger systems, there is also a maximum threshold that, if exceeded, will result in the collapse of the system.

The same way the individual cells and organs in our body depend on each other for their mutual survival, this same community principle extends beyond singular organisms and stretches it roots of dependency into the larger body of life. There is no more pronounced, nor vital an illustration of this community principle that that which we see in bees, which depend on flowers, just as flowers depend on them, but this community principle also extends to the organisms that support the continuation of bees in less obvious ways. For instance, as illustrated in this article, certain fungi which operate as a vital organ in the larger body of life on which bees depend.

This message of mutual dependency, spoken through the biological economy of which bees and we are dependent, would be a valuable one for us to recognize and apply. It is yet one of the many valuable messages nature speaks through the structure of life.